iknowthe.net | Internet and Ecommerce Consultant

There a great article here on the crisis in Domain names. Finding a good free domain name is pretty difficult now as if the good one’s aren’t gone, someone is holding on to them. Add to the mix the suffix variations and you either wind up buying 8 variation of the name or just hope noone copies your branding.

I know someone who’s local suffix registration lapsed, but their whole business is web based. they retain the .com – but someone else went ahead and registered the local suffix and now they are stuck. Mention buying a domain off anyone and they think megabucks – so beware letting names lapse. There’s also no point setting up a .co.uk if someone else already has the .com – you will drive your traffic elsewhere.

A new study has added tangible evidence to the widely held view that top-ranking search results get the most attention from users, and that lower-ranking results are all but invisible to most people.

The joint eye tracking study conducted by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it and eye tracking firm Eyetools found that the majority of eye tracking activity during a search happens in a “golden triangle” at the top of search result pages. The triangle extends across the top natural search result, then angles back to the left of the page down to the bottom-most “above the fold” result, typically in the third or fourth position on the page.

This area was viewed by 100% of the 50 participants in the study.

Results show a “F” shaped scan pattern, with the eye travelling vertically along the far left side of the results looking for visual cues (relevant words, brands, etc) and then scanning to the right, as if something caught the participant’s attention.

With both organic and sponsored search results, higher ranking results were viewed more often. Here are results for organic results (percentages represent the number of study participants viewing the listing):

Organic Search Results Viewed:

Rank 1 – 100%

Rank 2 – 100%

Rank 3 – 100%

Rank 4 – 85%

Rank 5 – 60%

Rank 6 – 50%

Rank 7 – 50%

Rank 8 – 30%

Rank 9 – 30%

Rank 10 – 20%

A similar, though smaller triangle effect was also observed for the sponsored listings on the right side of Google search result pages. In aggregate, fewer people looked at the sponsored listings; the exception to this was then sponsored ads were served at the top of a search result page as well as on the right side of the page. Ads at the top of the page were viewed by 100% of study participants.

The findings of this eye tracking study lend further credibility to the notion that organic search engine optimization is still critical to the overall success of a search marketing campaign. Last December, Jupiter Research released a report stating that algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six of seven commercially natured search referrals.

The eye tracking study offers a major reason why: People continue to favour organic listings over paid search listings, unless the paid search listing is at the top of the page.

Bookmarklets are bits of code you can drag to your browser toolbar to allow you to advanced search on search engines. Here are some I find useful:

Google:
Cache of Current Page (All browsers)
This Favelet/Bookmarklet lets you instantly see the Google cache of
whatever page URL you are on at the time of selecting the bookmarklet.
It is useful for checking whether Google has indexed a page, or for
spotting whether recent changes have been picked up yet.

Google:
All indexed from site (All browsers)
This Bookmarklet/Favelet opens a new window of Google search results
that enables you to find all of the pages from whatever site you are
on that are indexed within Google.

Google:
All mentions of site (All browsers)
This Bookmarklet/Favelet enables you to find all mentions of whatever
domain you are on that are on pages indexed within Google.

Google:
Backlinks Sample (All browsers)
This Favelet opens up a new window showing some of the backlinks that
Google has indexed for the site. Google rarely shows any links from
pages that do not have a high PageRank score in this filtered sample
of backlinks.

Yahoo!:
Find Backlinks (All browsers)
Find all links to any part of the domain you are on that are known
to the Yahoo! search engine.

Some UK music fans have agreed to pay thousands of pounds in compensation for distributing music illegally via peer-to-peer networks, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) announced Friday. The unlucky few paid up to £4,500 each in a series of 23 settlements and agreed to accept injunctions against them illegally uploading music again.

The BPI announced a further 31 cases across eight different P2P networks are in the pipeline as part of its attempt to broaden its campaign against illicit file sharing on the net. Other actions may follow.

The 23 settlements announced Friday arise out of the 26 cases announced by the BPI in October 2004. Three cases are still in negotiation and legal action may follow. The settlements include internet users from all over the UK – 17 men and six women aged between 22 and 58. Those caught out included a student, the director of an IT company and a local councillor. The BPI said that it some cases it’s likely that parents settled because of files uploaded by their children but it doesn’t go into details. The average settlement is more than £2,000. Two illegal file sharers are paying more than £4,000 each to settle their cases.

BPI General Counsel Geoff Taylor said: “We have no desire to drag people through the courts. So we have attempted to reach fair settlements where we can. We hope people will now begin to get the message that the best way to avoid the risk of legal action and paying substantial compensation is to stop illegal file sharing and to buy music online, safely and legally, instead.”

The BPI is due to attend the High Court on Friday (4 March) seeking orders for the disclosure of the identities of a further 31 illegal file sharers on a range of peer-to-peer networks, including Kazaa, eDonkey, Grokster, Soulseek, DirectConnect, Limewire, Bearshare and Imesh.

Said Taylor, “If illegal file sharers think that they can avoid getting caught by staying away from the most popular networks like Kazaa, they’re wrong. We are going to continue bringing cases against people who distribute music illegally, whichever file sharing network they use, for as long as it’s necessary. Legitimate music services can only prosper if we continue to fight the theft of music on the internet.”

The BPI reckons its turning the tide against illegal file sharing. It quotes figures suggesting the number of users on file sharing network Fast Track – on which Kazaa runs – was down 45 per cent in January 2005 from its April 2003 peak. The unpalatable bundling of adware on Kazaa and the shift to other services could equally be used to explain the decline. The BPI also quotes figures that the number of eDonkey servers is down by 61 per cent and BitTorrent servers and users are down 66 per cent but fails to the timescale or source for this data.

Apple’s iTunes Music Store has sold more than 300m downloads, the company said today.

The Mac maker last put a figure to the total number of purchases in January, when ITMS passed the 250m mark, up from 200m in mid-December 2004.

The timing of the latest announcement marks a slight acceleration in song download activity. It took around 41 days for Apple to sell 50m further downloads after passing the 200m mark. The next 50m downloads were sold in 36 days. It’s difficult to be precise because Apple didn’t say when exactly it sold its track numbers 200m, 250m and 300m, but it’s clear songs are being downloaded more frequently.

Today’s figure takes the average download rate from 1.25m songs a day – the figure most recently quoted by Apple to – 1.39m songs a day, an increase of just over 11 per cent.